Just this past month, Airbus’ narrowbody A320 family finally surpassed the legendary Boeing 737 series for the best-selling commercial jet of all time. The A320 family passing the 12,250 delivery mark as Boeing struggles to get 737 MAX jets off the line was a watershed moment in aviation history. That begs the question, with the highs and lows of the 2020s, which one of the juggernaut planemakers is on top?
The simple answer is Airbus. The European aerospace giant has consistently outpaced 
Boeing on deliveries for years, especially in the aftermath of the 737 MAX crashes of 2019 and the COVID-19 impact on the global supply chain. Not only that, Airbus has successfully brought its newest models to market faster and smoother with the A320neo, A330neo, and A350 series proving themselves in service, while two out of four 737 MAX models languish in certification alongside the 777X next-generation widebody.
To peel back the layers of how Airbus has managed to outstrip the legendary American planemakers, we will dive into the recent years of production. Going back to 2020, let’s review how the two titans of aerospace have performed in the current decade as we pass the halfway marker to 2030.
Airbus’ projected total production for 2025 is 770. While that is less than the original goal of 820, Boeing has not stated a public goal at all. The current estimate, based on the monthly 45-55 deliveries that Boeing has recorded this year, would put it somewhere around 600 at year’s end. That leaves Airbus with a lead of 20% or more this year. That is consistent with the last few years, since 2020.
The worst year of this decade was undoubtedly 2020 for Boeing, when the company was barely producing 10-20 planes a month. The cause was the two fatal crashes of 737 MAX jets by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. Following the two tragedies that killed nearly 350 people, 737 production was frozen until the investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other authorities authorized it to resume.
The table below offers a side-by-side comparison of the yearly deliveries recorded by each maker in this decade so far:
|
Year |
Boeing Deliveries |
Airbus Deliveries |
|---|---|---|
|
2020 |
157 |
566 |
|
2021 |
340 |
611 |
|
2022 |
480 |
663 |
|
2023 |
528 |
735 |
|
2024 |
348 |
766 |
The year 2020 saw an enormous difference, where Airbus delivered over three times as many aircraft. Last year also put Airbus ahead by over double, once again due to the quality control failures at Boeing. The door plug that was explosively ejected by an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX once again put a chokehold on Boeing’s output.
Airbus has not significantly ramped up or deviated from its normal business strategy to achieve the significant delivery lead that it now has over Boeing. Instead, Boeing has sabotaged itself by failing to enforce proper quality control standards. The lethal consequences of cutting corners at Boeing nearly put it on trial as the first US corporation to be prosecuted for a felony crime.
Staple Products: 737 MAX Vs A320neo
The results of the September production numbers from Boeing and Airbus revealed that the Airbus A320 series had surpassed the reigning champion of jetliners, the 737, for most aircraft delivered in the history of commercial aviation. Aside from the World War II era Douglas DC-3 Skytrain, the 737 has been the best-selling airliner since it debuted in the late 1960s. That legacy of over six decades was shattered by the low sales of 737 MAX jets since the catastrophic mishaps of 2019.
For Airbus’ part, the A320neo has enjoyed an enthusiastic market since it entered service in 2016. The excellent fuel efficiency and low maintenance requirements of the A320neo are built upon a well-established supply chain, logistics network, and training foundation cultivated by the legacy A320 jet. Thanks to the proven track record and sustained quality assurance by Airbus, the A320 crossed the 12,250 total delivery mark last month.
On top of taking the crown for highest-selling airliner in history, Airbus has a massive backlog of 7,262 orders. Boeing has a large backlog of orders for the 737 MAX, including several hundred MAX 7s for Southwest Airlines and hundreds more MAX 10s for many airlines, but not on the scale of the A320neo. Boeing is still capped at 38 for production of 737 MAX jets a month under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has publicly stated that it is not considering raising that quota yet.
Battle Of The Flagships: A350 versus 777X
Another very important point of comparison is the top-of-the-line model made by each manufacturer. In this category, Boeing fares even worse than it does in the workhorse narrowbody category. The reason is that the long-awaited and much-vaunted 777X is yet to clear the certification of the FAA. The giant twinjet is almost five years behind schedule now; meanwhile, Airbus’ A350 has been in service for a decade.
The 777X promises a revolution in long-haul air travel as the biggest twinjet in aviation history, and has a stunning deep order book. Yet, the plane only exists in the form of a handful of prototypes. Airbus has delivered hundreds of A350-900s, and its higher-capacity A350-1000 is set to begin manufacturing in the near future as well. The chronically delayed 777X has become a symbol of Boeing’s ineffectual leadership and declining engineering.
Only recently, the most recent CEO of Boeing, Kelly Ortberg, announced that the 777X is not expected to begin deliveries until 2027. The last two CEOs, Dennis Muilenberg and Dave Calhoun, both fell victim to the 737 MAX and lost their jobs. To the contrary, Airbus’ CEO Guillaume Faury has shepherded the company through the hardships of the COVID-19 air travel halt and overseen the steady rise of the company in the resurgence of air travel demand that followed the pandemic.
As the 777X is yet to reach the market, it is difficult to say which top-tier widebody is better. To Boeing’s credit, the new plane will be the biggest twinjet ever made and feature novel, industry-first technology. The enormous GE9X turbofan engines, folding wingtips, and redesigned interior will be a generational leap from the preceding 777 series. Boeing sent survey teams to every airport in the world that the 777X is likely to fly to as part of its design process, and enlarged windows have been seen before on a succeeding model update that wasn’t a clean-sheet design.
Is A Bottleneck On The Horizon?
There are indications that the global commercial aircraft industry is slowly inching toward a bottleneck in supply. Airbus is sitting on a backlog of engineless “sleds” awaiting powerplants from Pratt & Whitney and CFM International. Despite ramping up A320 and A220 production stateside, the maker has still had to cut its projected output for 2025. Boeing has improved this year, but its paltry numbers will need to dramatically improve year-over-year to meet demand.
Boeing initiated a merger with Spirit Aerosystems in the wake of the Alaska Airlines crisis to work toward quality assurance improvements. The aerostructures maker is responsible for roughly 70% of the parts in the 737 MAX and originated as an offshoot of Boeing decades earlier. The company was split off to allow Boeing to concentrate its business on assembly instead of fabrication, but with the disastrous production run of the latest iteration of the 737, it is circling the wagons and bringing Spirit back into the fold.
Airbus lays the blame on the weakened aerospace supply chain around the world that was dealt a severe blow by the Coronavirus Pandemic. The stymied flow of everything from turbofan engines to microchips and aluminum during the global health crisis that all but shut down the aerospace business has still not returned to its previous capacity.
The Merger That Poisoned Boeing
Many industry professionals and observers over the years have attributed much of the decline within Boeing to its merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Critics have said that Boeing became a corporation more concerned with finance than engineering after that turning point. The flailing McDonnell Douglas was unsuccessful in the commercial market and was responsible for making one of the most ignominious fighters in US military history, the F-4 Phantom.
McDonnell Douglas had some success with the airliners like the DC-9 and MD-11, but couldn’t come close to the success of Boeing and Airbus. Meanwhile, the F-4 was notorious for its dogfighting failure in the Vietnam conflict against North Vietnamese MiGs, resulting in many of its pilots being killed. Even Netflix released a 2022 documentary on the topic, describing the merger as Boeing’s “downfall.”
While it is essentially speculative and few objective facts are readily available to support this theory, there are enough proponents that it has become a prevailing storyline. Many attribute the decline in quality to a shift in focus from engineering to shareholder value. The aggressive shift in focus from innovation and craftsmanship to cost-efficiency is blamed for crises like the 737 MAX disasters.
Among the examples is one particularly poignant change that followed the merger: the relocation of the company’s historic headquarters from Seattle, Washington, to Chicago, Illinois. Transplanting the seat of leadership within the company from its largest center of manufacturing to the financial center of a city halfway across the country is certainly symbolic.
